Tales Of Graces F Review

Review is my impressions of beating the game and doing parts of the secret dungeon yet to do new game +.

Story 6.5/10
- The story starts of as the protagonists Asbel,Cheria and Richard being kids, they meet a girl named Sophie who has amnesia. they all become good friends as kids and they end up going to the Castles secret passage where a big event happens in which im not going to spoil.
The story after that happens 7 years after and the real game begins after that prologue. Asbel is training to be a knight so he can protect his friends. Cheria stays in Lhant to become a nurse. Hubert is adopted into the Oswell family. Richard is escaping from his uncle who poisoned his Dad. You meet two new characters as the story goes one is Malik who is Asbels knight instructor even though he fights with a boomerang and the other is Pascal who the party randomly meets throughout the story.
The story is simple for a Tales game im not going to spoil much compared to a lot of Tales games its quite weak compared to some of the Tales Of games to the likes of Symphonia,Abyss and Vesperia. Mostly its just about friendship and the cast getting together after the events of the childhood arc and the changes as the story goes on.
There is an extra chapter after you beat the original story which is half a year after the original events with an extra 7-10 hours gameplay.

Voice acting is ok nothing special Asbel voice is Bryce Papenbrook, Sophie is Cassandra Morris,Cheria is Laura Bailey , Richard is Jin in Blazblue,Pascal is Sakura of Naruto,Hubert is Neij of Naruto and Malik is Duke of Tales Of Vesperia.

Gameplay - 9/10

Graces skills system is pretty straightforward which is good you just pretty much have to win battles to get SP which can unlock titles in which you can learn new skills and costumes.

Artes are classified as A- Artes(Assault Artes) which you push the X button to do or X and doing different combitions with X and the Analog buttons you can do more combos as you get more titles throughout the game. B Artes(Burst Artes) you push the Circle button and you can pick which artes on the menu whether it is outside of battle or during battle.

Then there's the CC gauge(Chain Compacity) denotes the number of skills and actions a character can perform also you can dodge enemy attacks by pushing Square and with the right timing the CC gauge goes up by doing that with the right A-Arte and b-Arte combinations you can pull of higher combos.Higher the combo you get extra Exp and Sp.

A another battle mechanic is the Eleth Gauge which both you can use but the enemies can use it as well once it fills up the user or the enemy receive unlimited CC and become resistant to stunning also allies can perform Blast Caliburs but some enemies can pull of Blast Calibur's as well such as bosses.
Most characters you can melee with even magic casters such as Pascal and Cheria . Compared to other tales games all characters are fun to play as in lots of ways. Character switching is easy to you no longer need to get a flag item like in the other tales games all you need to do is push directional buttons to change character.

The gameplay is one of the best things about the game it is very rewarding and its worth playing on higher difficulties besides the challenge. You can getting extra skill points and EXP for higher difficulties.

Content 8/10-

No world map but there is a lot of simple quests in which you can do by visiting a Inn in different areas of the game and by fufilling quests there you can get extra exp and sp. Bonus dungeon after you finish the extra arc after the main game is completed. L:ike other tales Of games new game + is also avaliable after you completed the storyline.
Despite no world map like the older Tales flaghsip titles there is still a reasonable amount of content. Once you can get the airship you can find locations you couldn't find in the game by scanning the map like Final Fantasy X.

Graphics- Nothing special since it is based of the original Nintendo Wii version in Japan and it wasn't going to release in the west originally. Looks beautiful on a HD television in some places with its water colour like graphics but you can never see some objects from distance which is one of the issues.Some of the dungeons are lacking in detail bit of copy and paste in places.

Overall 7.6/10
Never the less the game is worth playing for the gameplay and content in my opnion. Like mentioned the story is about friendship its nothing you haven't seen before in a JRPG more focused on just the main playable characters rather than the side characters for not having a huge role in the story in general which is an element Tales of Series usually does well.

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